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Touch Handout
Touch Handout
Touch Handout
The GSA is a pedagogical ‘toolkit’ distinguished from the technical perspective on sport coaching by the GSA preference for the
pedagogical tools of game play and inquiry to build ‘game intelligence’ through coaching that asks questions in preference to
giving instructions (Australian Sports Commission, 1996; den Duyn, 1997). Pill (2007, 2012) progressed the GSA proposition into
a description of a developmental framework. The framework is composed of three stages of game development:
• Teaching fundamental sport skills through ‘game sense games’ (Australian Sports Commission, 1999; Schembri, 2005) that
respect the complementarity of technical and tactical elements of skill development (Smith, ;
• Modified and designer small sided games, which Bhaskaran (2000) described as a small-sided games pedagogy. The 3v3
game form of Touch indicated in Table 1 is an example of this scaling effect of reducing field size and playing numbers; and
• Designer games (Charlesworth, 1994) and match simulations that ‘chunk’ technical, tactical, psychological, competitive and
physical skills into a game form that conditions technical, tactical and fitness dimensions of performance. The game is con-
structed (or constrained) to achieve a specific game understanding.
Gibson’s (1979) ecological theory of direct perception suggests meaning is in the environment. Perception of the environment
leads to action. Affordances are properties in the environment that indicate possibilities for action (Turvey, 1992). According to
Turvey (1992), affordances are dispositional properties, meaning that the property will reveal itself in certain circumstances.
This means, that in some circumstances certain properties will be apparent. An actualising circumstance is therefore necessary
for the property to manifest. In a sorting context, the implication is that the properties of an environment can therefore only
be an affordance if the athlete is paired with an actualising circumstance. For the PE and sport coaching practitioner, the impli-
cation of this theory of affordances is that the athlete gathers information from a meaning-laden environment. Sport perfor-
mance cannot therefore be merely physical, with perception-decision making competency a distinguishing feature in the ability
of athletes to perform in the context of the dynamics of play (Davids, Button & Bennett, 2008).
Teacher Questions
What happens when we stand still in attack?
How can we use communication to speed up the roll ball and use this to
our advantage?
How can we create space when we have the ball to give our team time to
make decisions?